text:
The four documents prepared by Techdirt’s law firm are a well-written legalese-free “fuck you” addressed to Ayyadurai, and are well worth reading. The motion to dismiss and its corresponding supporting document take apart Ayyadurai’s case piece-by-piece in spectacularly detailed fashion. Any reasonable jury would see right through his claims.
Techdirt has also launched a survival fund. If you can, I’m sure they would appreciate your donation to help stomp out lawsuits designed to silence journalists and critics of wealthy individuals.
The reality is M&A is a risky business, with one of the biggest challenges being cultural fit. That’s particularly challenging at Apple because it sees its culture as both unique and uniquely important. That means smaller deals for technology and tight-knit teams of people are a better fit than massive established businesses with large workforces. For other companies with more generic engineering and software cultures, such acquisitions may be easier.
But it’s also fair to say the biggest failures include several attempts to use big acquisitions as levers for massive strategic shifts, while the most successful acquisitions have often been logical extensions of existing businesses. Skype, Nokia, and aQuantive at Microsoft all fell into the former category, for example, whereas Zappos at Amazon, YouTube and DoubleClick at Google, and Instagram at Facebook were all fairly adjacent businesses. Big strategic shifts have rarely been enabled by taking on entirely new and different businesses – those are often best established through organic change or technology acquisitions which enable broader changes.
Apple has made plenty of acquisitions, most of which have been at relatively low prices for what they returned: custom silicon, Siri, NeXT, Steve friggen Jobs, and so on. They just don’t do acquisitions like the investment bankers in that Bloomberg article think that they should.
Matthew Chabalko, Mohsen Shahmohammadi, and Alanson Sample of Disney Research:
Wireless power delivery has the potential to seamlessly power our electrical devices as easily as data is transmitted through the air. However, existing solutions are limited to near contact distances and do not provide the geometric freedom to enable automatic and un-aided charging. We introduce quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR), which can enable purpose-built structures, such as cabinets, rooms, and warehouses, to generate quasistatic magnetic fields that safely deliver kilowatts of power to mobile receivers contained nearly anywhere within.
This is still pretty experimental — the paper shows the setup in Fig. 3, and it’s transmitting power via a giant copper pole and conductive walls. Still, this appears to be one hell of a leap over previous wireless power solutions in terms of both its compactness and flexibility. One photo in the paper shows an iPhone mounted in a slim case with a receiver.
Just imagine a future where transmitters like these are as ubiquitous as WiFi, and the possibilities that open up when batteries can be that much smaller or, perhaps, unnecessary, in some applications.
The legislation would require Apple and other electronics manufacturers to sell repair parts to consumers and independent repair shops, and would require manufacturers to make diagnostic and service manuals available to the public.
According to the source, an Apple representative, staffer, or lobbyist will testify against the bill at a hearing in Lincoln on March 9. AT&T will also argue against the bill, the source said. The source told me that at least one of the companies plans to say that consumers who repair their own phones could cause lithium batteries to catch fire. Motherboard is protecting the identity of the source because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
The idea that it’s “unsafe” to repair your own devices is one that manufacturers have been promoting for years. Last year, industry lobbyists told lawmakers in Minnesota that broken glass could cut the fingers of consumers who try to repair their screens, according to Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org. Byrne said she will also testify at the Nebraska hearing and “plans to bring band aids.”
I get that Apple, IBM, John Deere, and others would all prefer that this legislation doesn’t pass because it will impact their revenue. As much as I like the idea of this bill, I expect most tech companies to lobby against it. But their arguments are, so far, terrible. Lithium ion batteries and broken glass are dangerous, sure, but give people some credit — it’s not that hard to swap a battery a screen. If I were a legislator, I wouldn’t be convinced by their arguments.
But the prospect of a Cupertino-based megacorporation losing business to local repair shops isn’t a very sympathetic argument at the Nebraska statehouse. And so Apple has tried a slew of other tactics, according to state Sen. Lydia Brasch, who was recently visited by Steve Kester, an Apple state government affairs specialist.
“Apple said we would be the only state that would pass this, and that we would become the mecca for bad actors,” Brasch, who is sponsoring the bill, told me in a phone call. “They said that doing this would make it very easy for hackers to relocate to Nebraska.”
These arguments are still unconvincing, and getting worse.
I don’t get why Apple apparently isn’t making an argument for innovation. For example, they could point to the Touch ID sensor’s pairing system and explain that, while it sacrifices repairability of the home button, it makes the system more secure. I’m not sure if a Nebraskan lawmaker would be convinced by this, but it’s far less bullshitty than the arguments Koebler has been reporting.
The European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday approved the Canada-EU trade agreement after a noisy and sometimes emotional debate.
Roughly 58 per cent of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), setting the stage for provisional application of nearly 90 per cent of the agreement later this spring.
“This is a deal for the people,” International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne said after the vote, emphasizing how the agreement will offer consumers more choice and lower costs.
The good news is that CETA will generally reduce the price of European imports in Canada, including for cars, wine, and cheese. You can imagine how happy I am.
The bad news is that the intellectual property provisions in the agreement are, generally, pretty poor. The agreement makes it illegal to create, distribute, or market any product or device that could work around DRM; it also makes it illegal for consumers to modify or strip DRM, or distribute any information on how to break DRM. That’s unpleasant.
The biggest news this year — well, so far, at least — is that it’s heading back to the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, site of the first-ever WWDC.
John Gruber got to speak to Phil Schiller yesterday about this announcement, and they’re not making the move back to San Jose for the reason I thought they might:
I asked whether the move to San Jose changed the number of people who’d be able to attend. Schiller said it did not — attendance will be about the same.
Moscone West, the site of every WWDC’s labs and sessions since 2003, has a combined floor space of about 300,000 square feet. The McEnery has about 25% more space. But I bet attendance isn’t limited by floor space as much as it is by keeping the employee-to-attendee ratio low.
A cursory glance at a couple of travel sites indicates that it’s going to be a little bit less expensive to stay in San Jose than it is in San Francisco. I’m seeing a bunch of hotels at $150–250 per night which, while not cheap, adds up to some substantial savings over the week. Rooms are going really fast, so if you’re thinking about going for the atmosphere, start looking right away.
Update: It’s a fifteen minute drive drive from the convention centre to Apple Campus 2, so I’m sure they’ll have some events there as well. Perhaps the Bash? It’s only twelve kilometres away; enterprising attendees could walk that route if they felt like it.
Stuart McLean, the host of CBC Radio’s The Vinyl Café and an award-winning humorist, has died at age 68 after a battle with melanoma.
McLean’s trademark blend of storytelling — part nostalgia, part pithy observations about everyday life — and folksy, familiar delivery made him a hit with audiences for more than 20 years. But he always maintained that success came as a surprise to him.
[…] by carefully describing drivers in their system as “entrepreneurs” and appropriating the language of true markets, Uber has been welcomed by communities and policymakers as if they were creating a new marketplace. That has serious implications for policy, regulation and even civil rights. For example, we can sincerely laud Uber for making it easier for African American passengers to reliably hail a car when they need a ride, but if persistent patterns of bias from drivers arise again in the Uber era, we’ll have a harder time regulating those abuses because Uber doesn’t usually follow the same policies as licensed taxis.
These pseudo-market patterns also mask patterns of subsidy, like the fact that Uber’s current operations are subsidized by investors to the tune of $2 billion per year. That’s a cost that will be immediately passed along to consumers as soon as Uber succeeds in displacing conventional taxis.
A thought-provoking piece on our inability to reconcile the speed of the evolution of marketplaces with the regulations required to control monopolization and consumer-unfriendly behaviours.
Shortly after Verizon announced in July their purchase of Yahoo for slightly less than Yahoo paid for Broadcast.com, a series of alarmingnews articles came out notifying users of one data breach after another. In 2012, 200 million accounts were compromised; in 2013, a billion; and, in 2014, 500 million accounts were breached. In every case, Verizon said that they were unaware of these incidents until just before Yahoo disclosed them to the press and to users.
With three very high-profile incidents like these, the Verizon acquisition felt a little like it might collapse. However, earlier today, Bloomberg reported that the deal was finally ready to go through — for $250 million less than initially announced:
Verizon Communications Inc. is close to a renegotiated deal for Yahoo! Inc.’s internet properties that would reduce the price of the $4.8 billion agreement by about $250 million after the revelation of security breaches at the web company, according to people familiar with the matter.
In addition to the discount, Verizon and the entity that remains of Yahoo after the deal, to be renamed Altaba Inc., are expected to share any ongoing legal responsibilities related to the breaches, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. An announcement of the new agreement could come in a matter of days or weeks, said the people. The revised agreement isn’t final and could still change, they said.
Yahoo is warning users of potentially malicious activity on their accounts between 2015 and 2016, the latest development in the internet company’s investigation of a mega-breach that exposed 1 billion users’ data several years ago.
Yahoo confirmed Wednesday that it was notifying users that their accounts had potentially been compromised but declined to say how many people were affected.
There has now been a problem with Yahoo’s security every single year for the past five years. These incidents affect nearly two billion accounts cumulatively, thereby undermining the security of basically all of their users across the web.
The format of the show is similar to that of fellow talent-based reality shows The Voice and Shark Tank. Aspiring app developers descend down an escalator while pitching four judges on their idea. By the time they get to the bottom, the judges must swipe left or right to demonstrate whether they’re interested. If multiple judges swipe right on a contestant, the contestant gets to choose who they want to pair with. Once paired, the developer goes through an incubator period, getting advise from developers at big companies like Uber, until it’s ready enough to pitch to Lightspeed Venture Partners for funding.
I watched the trailer; it doesn’t look good. I like the “escalator pitch” idea, and I think Gary Vaynerchuk and Jessica Alba will be reasonably competent. But I have reservations about Gwyneth Paltrow and Will.I.Am’s involvement. And then there’s the actual premise of the show:
[Eddy Cue] says Apple is just starting out with original content, but that it wants to do more. When asked whether it could see itself becoming Netflix, Cue said Apple wants to see where it can go with its own strategy. Cue later emphasized that Apple doesn’t just want to buy shows, denying that Apple was ever interested in purchasing The Grand Tour. Instead, Apple only wants to make shows that are unique and “create culture.”
I’ve seen more than a few people write this off as a dramatized version of app development — compiling code and funding rounds, as seen through a reality TV filter. I think that’s overly kind. The premise is derivative, and the clips — so far — seem mediocre and dull. What has been shown so far does a disservice to the vast majority of developers, too.
Meanwhile, for all its faults, the Grand Tour had a genuinely good first season by its end. It may have been a shameless knockoff of the Top Gear format, but it was presented by the same cast that made Top Gear a worldwide phenomenon, and it was a genuine joy to watch. If anything, it managed to make the most recent iteration of Top Gear on the BBC look like the knock-off, not the Grand Tour.
A reality show isn’t creating culture, it’s copying a format that is tired. Reality TV is the Android phone of TV shows, and Apple could surely do better.
No matter whether I’m the right audience for this, shouldn’t Apple be shooting for more than a knockoff of X Factor, but with the singing bits replaced with clips of developers asking wealthy VCs for money?
I also think the distribution of this TV show is confused. For some reason, it will be made available through Apple Music within the Music app, despite Apple having an app literally called “TV”.
Sure, the show hasn’t come out yet. I’ll give it a shot — I’m an Apple Music subscriber, so why not? But I’m pessimistic about its chances of clearing my already-low expectations for it.
Notice, though, that the photos appear to corroborate an important detail from the CNN report. “The patio was lit only with candles and moonlight, so aides used the camera lights on their phones to help the stone-faced Trump and Abe read through the documents,” Liptak writes. In DeAgazio’s first photo, you can see a phone flashlight being used in that way.
Why is this important? Mobile phones have flashlights, yes — and cameras, microphones and Internet connectivity. When Edward Snowden was meeting with reporters in Hong Kong at the moment he was leaking the material he’d stolen from the NSA, he famously asked that they place their phones in the refrigerator — blocking any radio signals in the event that the visitors’ phones had been hacked. This was considered the most secure way of ensuring that the phones couldn’t be used as wiretaps, even more secure than removing the battery. Phones — especially phones with their flashes turned on for improved visibility — are portable television satellite trucks and, if compromised, can be used to get a great deal of information about what’s happening nearby, unless precautions are taken.
A 2014 report (PDF) by SnoopWall, an anti-malware developer, found that the ten most popular flashlight apps for Android overreached the permissions they required to run. All of them had permission to capture photos and get network access. In a 2016 CBS report, SnoopWall founder Gary Miliefsky said that one flashlight app his company studied captured audio and transmitted recordings to a server in Beijing.
None of this may have happened in this incident — we’re unlikely to ever know because of the inherently secretive nature of the subject — but it could have happened because of careless disregard for basic security precautions.
Update: On February 3, Senators Tom Udall and Sheldon Whitehouse sent a letter to the president asking about what background checks and security precautions are employed at the Mar-a-Lago estate. No administration officials responded.
A couple of weeks ago, I linked to Jeffrey Johnson’s account of Underpass, his new app, charting in the Mac App Store with a single sale. I wrote:
Of note, most of the apps ahead of Underpass are third-party implementations of popular iOS apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. And, at number thirteen in the Top Grossing chart, Apple’s long-outdated FaceTime app. That doesn’t sound like a healthy ecosystem.
Underpass is available exclusively in the App Store. Now, I want to look at the opposite of that situation. In the past two months, two other developers have shared their accounts of taking their apps out of the Mac App Store.
All of Dash’s App Store revenue has migrated to direct sales, with a slight increase.
Most of the App Store users of Dash 3 have migrated their license to the direct version. I was able to use the in-app notification mechanism I had to let them know about what’s going on so that they don’t get cut off from the app they paid for.
Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba, writing about selling Piezo outside of the App Store for a full year:
The Mac App Store previously made up about half of Piezo’s unit sales, so we might have expected to sell half as many copies after exiting the store. Instead, it seems that nearly all of those App Store sales shifted to direct sales. It appears that nearly everyone who would have purchased Piezo via the Mac App Store opted to purchase directly once that was the only option. Far from the Mac App Store helping drive sales to us, it appears we had instead been driving sales away from our own site, and into the Mac App Store.
Remarkable; yet, judging by the condition of the Mac App Store, unsurprising.
The Mac App Store could have been a golden opportunity for developers. In a hypothetical world, having Apple handle credit card processing, automatic updates, quality assurance, and curation, plus putting their marketing muscle behind the store — all of these factors could have made developers happy to give up 30% of their potential revenue. But the large number and aggressive types of limitations required for apps in the store combined with Apple’s rather lax quality controls has made the Mac App Store a combined flea market and glorified Software Update utility.
The new feature adds another layer to the already-existing “save” option in Google Maps. Once you pinpoint a desired location, you can hit the “save” button to reveal a number of premade lists including “Want to Go,” “Starred,” and “Favorites.” Then you can choose the list you want the location to live in, or create a new list with a personalized title like “Vacation.” In Google Maps’ menu, you can find all your saved lists in the “Your Places” folder when you want to recall saved locations. Now each list will have a “share” button as well, which lets you grab its link to share with others or share it via different social networks. This should make it easier to share things like favorite restaurants and shopping locations with visiting out-of-town family and the like.
This is one of those features that most of us aren’t going to use very often, but when we need it, we really need it. If you’re after something similar for Apple Maps, I’ve been using Relay since it launched and I love it.
Our latest discovery concerns synced Safari history. While researching this sync, we discovered that deleting a browsing history record makes that record disappear from synced devices; however, the record still remains available (but invisible) in iCloud. We kept researching, and discovered that such deleted records can be kept in iCloud for more than a year. We updated Elcomsoft Phone Breaker to give it the ability to extract such deleted records from the cloud. Moreover, we were able to pull additional information about Safari history entries including the exact date and time each record was last visited and deleted!
Katalov says that, since being notified, Apple is now purging records older than two weeks. Apparently, however, they’re retaining synced history items deleted within the past two weeks. I see no logical reason why records of items removed from a user’s browsing history should remain synced for any length of time.
A couple years ago, I took a road trip from Wisconsin to Washington and mostly stayed in rural hotels on the way. I expected the internet in rural areas too sparse to have cable internet to be slow, but I was still surprised that a large fraction of the web was inaccessible. Some blogs with lightweight styling were readable, as were pages by academics who hadn’t updated the styling on their website since 1995. But very few commercial websites were usable (other than Google). When I measured my connection, I found that the bandwidth was roughly comparable to what I got with a 56k modem in the 90s. The latency and packetloss were significantly worse than the average day on dialup: latency varied between 500ms and 1000ms and packetloss varied between 1% and 10%. Those numbers are comparable to what I’d see on dialup on a bad day.
The flaw in the “page weight doesn’t matter because average speed is fast” is that if you average the connection of someone in my apartment building (which is wired for 1Gbps internet) and someone on 56k dialup, you get an average speed of 500 Mbps. That doesn’t mean the person on dialup is actually going to be able to load a 5MB website. The average speed of 3.9 Mbps comes from a 2014 Akamai report, but it’s just an average. If you look at Akamai’s 2016 report, you can find entire countries where more than 90% of IP addresses are slower than that!
Your site may not explicitly target visitors in those countries, but if we’re building websites for the World Wide Web, we ought to be more considerate of users everywhere.
I have a small confession to make. Bad arguments dressed with the tinsel of pseudo-intellectualism are like catnip to me: they drive me crazy, and I’m a total sucker for batting them around. Deep in my heart, I know that’s the intent of the author of any of these articles, yet I can’t help but want to dress them down.
Apple has great design is the biggest myth in technology today.
Alright, I’ll bite.
The only problem with this conclusion: Apple has never accomplished sufficiently great design in its electronics to justify lionizing the pedantry of design at the new Apple campus.
A bold opener. But what is “sufficiently great design”, in the context of industrial design or consumer products? One definition might be that a product becomes widely-imitated, yet never loses its iconic status. Consumer laptops, for example, have coalesced around a blueprint established by the MacBook Air. After the iPhone was released, all smartphones became iPhone iterations. If we reach back a little farther, to before Jony Ive was at Apple, virtually every laptop that succeeded the PowerBook 100 has imitated its layout.
It’s not so much that these products were popular that evidences “sufficiently great design”. It’s that all of these products established the de facto standard for the design of their product category:
The PowerBook 100 was the first laptop to be sold with its keyboard near the hinge of the case, creating an area for a palmrest and pointing device below it. That’s been the basic design language of laptops ever since.
The first MacBook Air was thin and light, and forecast the way the rest of Apple’s laptops — and then much of the industry’s imitations — would be built. The version first released in 2010 came with solid state storage as standard, and created the blueprint for most of the consumer laptops on sale today.
The iPhone’s litany of contributions to the modern smartphone need not be restated. It, once again, set the standard for every phone that followed.
But there’s more to great design than its capacity to be imitated. Design, after all, is about how something works in addition to how it looks. And that’s where Bogost starts to sink his teeth in:
Starting with the iPhone 5S, first released in 2014, Apple adopted a software-controlled fingerprint sensor mounted on the home button. Known as Touch ID, the feature allows users to authenticate to unlock the phone, download products from the App Store, and make payments at participating retailers with Apple Pay. But even the slightest disturbance on a finger makes Touch ID unreliable. Washed your hands recently? Ate a banana? Dug in the dirt of the garden? Touched something too warm, or too cold, for too long? Good luck authenticating with your fingerprint. A mere inconvenience when unlocking the phone, but Apple Pay won’t work at all without Touch ID. So fat chance using that new digital wallet on a rainy day, or after tactically interacting with worldly substances.
Everything that has ever been designed has required a series of decisions based on what’s possible, what’s necessary for the final product, and what reasonable compromises can be made for everything to work correctly. “Sufficiently great design”, in this context, is also about making choices and compromises that produce a better product in typical use.
In this case, the Touch ID sensor allows for a very quick way to authenticate a transaction without requiring anything to be typed or finely-manipulated with one’s fingers. In a typical use case — while holding the phone very close to an NFC sensor at a checkstand, for instance — that’s a better user experience than any currently-available alternative I can think of.
As for Bogost’s specific complaints, I’ve never had anything like those problems with Touch ID on my iPhone. Between the built-in error correction and the fast sensor in my 6S, it works almost unbelievably well virtually every time. On the off chance my fingerprint fails to read, quickly wiping my thumb on a tissue or my jeans is enough to make it work. And, realistically, if your fingers are muddy from digging in the garden, is your first instinct going to be to reach for your smartphone without washing your hands?
In 2008, [Jobs] revealed the first run of the impossibly-thin MacBook Air by sliding it dramatically out of a manila envelope. Amazing! Less so, but not shown: the inch-thick power adapter needed to charge the device. Apple still hasn’t even attempted to reduce the size — and particularly the bulky thickness — of its power supplies, even as it has systematically reduced the girth of its computers.
This argument is silly. AC adaptors are limited by two things: the width of a plug, and physics. AC adaptors are already about the same width as a typical North American or Korean outlet, and they make full use of their available space, mostly for safety reasons.
Bogost’s article contains a series of other complaints: the USB-C ports in the new MacBook Pro, the flaws of autocorrect, iTunes, and larger iPhones that are harder to handle. But poking at these individual products — and I have, too — misses the larger scope of why Apple can be considered great at design. Bogost:
Steve Jobs’s design philosophy was fascist more than it was exacting. The man was a not a demigod of design, but its dictator. He made things get made the way he wanted them made, and his users appreciated his definitiveness and lack of compromise. They mistook those conceits for virtues in the objects themselves.
The argument that Jobs was an unredeeming tyrant has been made countless times while he was alive and since his death. It’s never going to go away. The simple fact is that his general direction was, more often than not, right.
Bogost’s implication that Jobs did not compromise or that he didn’t invite argument or debate is complete bullshit, as has been documentedextensively.1 The difference between the compromises that Apple has made while designing their products and those that their competitors have made is that Apple’s have generally been produced from a specific thread of Apple-yness. It’s the reason why Bogost is able to write an article like this where he points out that it’s decidedly unApple-y for the Lightning cable that comes with every new iPhone to require an adaptor to be plugged into a new MacBook. For something like that to feel unApple-y requires a general sense of what does feel Apple-y.
(Also, including the word “fascist” in an article is a great way to get noticed in 2017.)
At a time when every company bows to even the most absurd demands of the consumer, Apple never cared what its customers thought, or wanted. Instead it told them what to like, and how to like it. What a relief! The corporate design autocracy obviates the need for decision-making. Computer users won’t use floppy disks because there is no floppy drive. Later, likewise optical drives. Later, likewise mini-stereo headphone jacks. To ascribe such choices to design — or to courage — is a mistake. As I have arguedbefore, Apple is expert at getting people to commit to Apple’s future without pondering how technology could have evolved differently.
The prior articles Bogost wrote include paragraphs objecting to the superseding of the CD-RW by the iPod and, yes, bemoaning the loss of the floppy disk. Pardon my stating the obvious, but what he fails to acknowledge is that the replacements in every single case he cites are objectively better. An iPod is a far better way to carry around a bunch of music than is a stack of CDs. Going back a generation, I don’t really need to mention how much better it is to listen to real sound recordings than it is the MIDI interpretations of them, because that’s all that would fit on a floppy.
And Apple’s bets have seemed to pay off. While there are myriad flaws in the argument that better products sell more units, the simple fact is that if the issues Bogost raises — including the obligatory whining about the dumping of the headphone jack from the iPhone — were truly show-stopping for most people, most people would not buy one. If you absolutely need a DVD drive in 2017, you’re not going to consider any of Apple’s laptops, and they’re okay with that. Their standpoint on that is, quite literally, by design.
(Also, including the word “autocracy” in an article is a great way to get noticed in 2017.)
The attention to detail around door handles and thresholds might feel like a design methodology so pedantic at the micro-level that it could only ever produce greatness at the macro.
But one could also compare the zombified reality of Apple workers plodding to work over the carefully unperturbed thresholds in their new spaceship headquarters to the sleepy drone of an army built to abide rather than to think, let alone think different. The same invisible doorways lead to and from the authorized chambers of work and gardens of leisure. So exacting!
These are, I think, the paragraphs where Bogost’s argument truly disintegrates. I’ve never worked at Apple, but not a single employee or ex-employee I’ve asked about their time there has responded by stating that they “abide rather than […] think”. When you read anything an ex-employee has written about their time at the company or hear about an interaction that someone has had with a current employee, the clearest thing that comes through is that the people working on these products really, really care about their work. That’s, perhaps, a third pillar of “great design”: true care and passion.
That leads me to addressing an argument that opened Bogost’s essay:
But if Apple designs at its best when attending closely to details like those revealed in the construction of its spaceship headquarters, then presumably the details of its products would stand out as worthy precedents. Yet, when this premise is tested, it comes up wanting. In truth, Apple’s products hide a shambles of bad design under the perfection of sleek exteriors.
“Sufficiently great design” does not, of course, mean “free of imperfections”. But it’s also something that cannot be read solely through details. Bogost’s argument is, therefore, backwards. Apple’s biggest contribution to design has been their ability to project a broader vision of consumer electronics at vast scale while still keeping an eye on the details.
Maybe you’re someone who’s getting bored with Apple. Maybe you’re frustrated by some of the decisions they’ve made — anyone who reads this site regularly will know that I certainly am. But, as I wrote above, great design is a process of compromises and decisions. Apple’s products are not perfect, but the company’s contributions to design from both aesthetic and functional perspectives is impossible to deny. They have, truly, produced some of the most iconic, popular, industry-changing, revolutionary designs of the past fifty years. If that’s not “sufficiently great”, I don’t know what is.
Steve Jobs at D in 2007: “At Apple it’s about ideas, and we argue about ideas constantly.” ↩
In that keynote — which has been mostly forgotten today — Schiller said that Mac OS X was designed to power the Mac “at least fifteen years, or more.”
We now live in that more timeframe.
Schiller’s statement was prescient — last year, around the fifteenth anniversary of his comment, Mac OS X was rebranded to be more in line with the nomenclature used for Apple’s other operating systems.
Cecilia Kang of the New York Times summarizes new FCC char Ajit Pai’s first few days on the job:
Mr. Pai took a first swipe at net neutrality rules designed to ensure equal access to content on the internet. He stopped nine companies from providing discounted high-speed internet service to low-income individuals. He withdrew an effort to keep prison phone rates down, and he scrapped a proposal to break open the cable box market.
In total, as the chairman of the F.C.C., Mr. Pai released about a dozen actions in the last week, many buried in the agency’s website and not publicly announced, stunning consumer advocacy groups and telecom analysts. They said Mr. Pai’s message was clear: The F.C.C., an independent agency, will mirror the Trump administration’s rapid unwinding of government regulations that businesses fought against during the Obama administration.
“With these strong-arm tactics, Chairman Pai is showing his true stripes,” said Matt Wood, the policy director at the consumer group Free Press.
“The public wants an F.C.C. that helps people,” he added. “Instead, it got one that does favors for the powerful corporations that its chairman used to work for.”
While Chair Pai has declined to say what measures he will take to dismantle or diminish net neutrality, he made his opposition to the open internet rules clear during his first meeting as the agency’s chief last week. “My present position is pretty simple: I favor a free and open internet and I oppose Title II,” he said, referring to the classification of broadband companies as akin to utilities, subject to more robust regulation.
In response to the criticism of Chair Pai at the press conference Tuesday, a spokesperson for the FCC told BuzzFeed News: “Consistent with the bipartisan consensus dating back to the Clinton Administration, Chairman Pai supports a free and open Internet but opposes heavy-handed Title II regulation. The Internet was free and open before the 2015 party-line vote imposing these Depression-Era regulations.”
The reversal of the decision to classify ISPs as common carriers would be a serious setback for net neutrality. Pai has previously made clear his objection to a Title II classification for ISPs. I don’t see how the principles of net neutrality can be effectively enforced without resorting to Title II.
I’ve joked that if Eddie Cue loved reading the way he clearly loves music, then iBooks, the iBookstore, and iBooks Author would be amazing. Not only aren’t they amazing, they aren’t even good.
It’s like they’ve assigned a committed carnivore to design the meals and cook for Vegans. You need someone who loves and understands vegetables and shares the commitment to not using meat or meat products.
You’ve probably seen this piece shared all over, and rightfully so: Apple has barely mentioned iBooks in the past year, and — outside of home screen shots — iBooks isn’t featured on any of Apple’s iPad product webpages.
On iBooks Author, Steinberg writes:
iBooks Author could have been a trojan horse into the personal publishing business. It would have been classic Apple. Instead of small authors going to Amazon’s platform, they would have started with iBooks Author. Apple should have made it easy for them to push to Amazon as well. Why? Because these people wanted to publish on Amazon but they weren’t considering publishing with Apple. Thousands of authors would have come to Apple to create content and stayed with Apple after publishing content there.
OK, so iBooks Author is essentially abandonware, what about iBooks and the iBookstore.
Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: iBooks Author isn’t abandonware, as this post claims. Calling iBooks Author ‘abandonware’ is not just factually false, but it is also a disrespectful slap in the face to the growing, diverse communities of content creators out there using it. I wish that description weren’t in this otherwise strong and insightful post.
iBooks Author was most recently updated in September; prior to that, it was updated almost exactly one year prior. That’s a glacial pace for an app, but it isn’t out of line with many of Apple’s other Mac applications. Pages, for example, saw its last major update to 6.0 in September, and the version prior — 5.6 — was released in October 2015. In between these updates were two minor bug fixing releases.
A 2016 poll by Pew Research indicated that Americans aged 18–29 were the most likely of any adult age group to have read a book in any format in the prior twelve months, and the most likely to have read an e-book in the same timeframe. That figure is likely juiced by required post-secondary reading, but there’s clearly a big market of avid readers out there. Maybe Apple isn’t the right company to go after them, but I think there’s a tremendous opportunity that Apple is sleeping on.


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More businesses in the building, architecture and design trades think social media is important to their livelihood than did a year ago. That’s not surprising. What is more surprising, perhaps is that a greater proportion of those businesses are unsure how to use social media to their benefit than was the case 12 months ago.The results of a survey by industry publisher Infolink paint the picture of businesses that know they need to harness this new medium, but which are throwing their hands up in increasing numbers.In each of three categories – building and construction, architecture and design – a greater proportion of respondents said they had a LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+ presence than a year ago. Among each group the perceived importance of social media as a marketing tool increased on last year. Equally, however, the proportion saying they were not sure how to use social media increased.In building/construction, the proportion saying they were not sure how to use social media doubled to 36 per cent of respondents from 18 per cent. Among architects, it nearly tripled, to 48 per cent from 18 per cent and among design professionals the proportion more than tripled, to 36 per cent from 11 per cent a year earlier.“I’d have to sit back and look at it and think of ways it could help my business, but at this stage all my work comes from word of mouth, which is some form of social medium, I suppose," said Roy Kahle, the owner of Geelong-based small business R&B Kahle Building and Landscaping.The 59-year-old Kahle says it’s not an age issue, pointing out that many of his contemporaries use social media. But the contractor who specialises in high-end architect-designed residences – and who still has a nail bag around his waist when he speaks to BRW by phone – says he isn’t able to invest the time to work out how he could use social media in his business.
The results indicate that many businesses have tried out social media over the past 12 months, but have not been able to measure its success or a return, says Infolink sales manager Adrian Wilson.“Most people – and it’s not just particular to this market – feel they have to start doing some kind of social media," Wilson says. “They may set up a basic site, populate it with poor information or poor content, they don’t see much return and are thinking of giving up on it. To generate regular content, creative content and thought leadership – that takes time. Most people look at it and think – it’s too hard."Kahle is in that category, but holds out hopes his son Brent, who works with him in the business now, will be able to do so.“As far as social media goes, I don’t know where the future lies," he says. “My son works with me now. I haven’t got a Twitter account or Facebook or anything. All the kids are. They might use it later on."
Getting it right
Some people are already using it successfully, however. Alison Evans has been running the website and Linked In profile for their North Coburg-based business, F.E.W. Waterproofing, for two years. Her clients are project managers in construction companies and she uses her husband Paul’s Linked In profile, as well as the monthly newsletter, to build relationships with present and future clients.“I’ve learned that social media is not selling," Evans says. “You have to provide information and have to be prepared to share your knowledge. It’s a different mindset for small business."
The flipside, however, is that it positions Paul as an authority in the waterproofing business. Over the past 12 months people have started ringing up with queries and those queries often turn into jobs.“It’s easier to get the sale because people know a lot about the company and Paul," Evans says. “It’s not cold to begin with. They’re warm prospects straight away."Over the past 12 months Evans’ email list has doubled to 200 and the clients who do come are better quality ones, she says.IN an era of placing ads in local papers, as many as half of queries would be tyre-kickers who weren’t serious about buying. Now, Evans says, it’s different.“Now its quality targeted leads and its easier to close it," she says..
|% Facebook 2013||% LinkedIn 2013||% G+ 2013||‘Social media crucial part of marketing’ 2013||‘Not sure how to use social media to engage market’ 2013||‘We see tangible results from social media’ 2013|
Source: Infolink. The 2013 survey of 1,291 Australian business and non-business owners in the architecture, building, construction and design industries over was carried out between July and November 2013, covering all states and territories of Australia and representing all demographic.The 2012 survey of 1,126 Australian business and non-business owners in the architecture, building, construction and design industries was carried out over the months of May and June 2012.

domain: news


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President Benigno Aquino III said that the creation of a Credit Card Information Bureau may solve the numerous complaints against credit card companies exacting high interest rates on credit-card users.
Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said yesterday that during Aquino’s meeting with the Asian Development Bank Board of Directors, he emphasized the credit responsibility and better identity of credit card holders rather than on tax reduction for credit card holders.
Lacierda said the idea of tax reduction for credit card holders was brought out by one of the ADB Board of Directors during the meeting with Aquino.
“It is not something we are looking at right now but rather on the creation of a credit information bureau and emphasis on responsibility of card holders,” he said.
Lacierda added that among other things, Aquino and the ADB officials discussed good governance, anti-corruption efforts, anti-poverty measures, fiscal management policy, and judicial reforms.
He also said that Aquino thanked the ADB for its continued support to the conditional cash transfer program and the public-private partnership program.*PNA


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American Apparel workers are hoping the second time’s the charm.
The fashion manufacturer on Monday filed its second Chapter 11 petition in just under a year after it struggled to make a go of it following a bitter divorce from its former chief executive and founder, Dov Charney.
A Canadian company, Gildan Activewear, which makes underwear and T-shirts, has emerged as the lead bidder, agreeing to buy for $66 million certain assets of the company, which also operates a chain of retail stores.
The offer is subject to higher and better offers.
Gildan, which makes such brands as Alstyle and Kushyfoot, is one of the largest manufacturers of cotton apparel in North America, with factories in California and North Carolina.
The Montreal company is buying American Apparel’s wholesale business, licenses and, possibly, four manufacturing and distribution facilities in downtown Los Angles — but not any of its 211 stores.
The filing could open the door for a return by Charney to the company’s C-Suite — he made an unsuccessful $300 million bid in January — but on Monday he said such a move is “unlikely.”
“It’s not out of the realm that I would put in another bid,” Charney told The Post, “but I’m committed to starting my own business now.”
Over the past two years, since Charney was ousted as CEO, the company has sunk into irrelevance with teen customers.
“It lacked a marketing plan and engaged in ad hoc advertising that lacked focus and did not attract or interest the company’s customer base,” said American Apparel’s chief restructuring officer, Mark Weinsten, in a court filing on Monday.
Last year, the company generated $497 million in sales, down from a peak of $663 million. As of Sept. 30, American Apparel’s sales were down 32.7 percent year over year.
In the months leading up to the latest Chapter 11, it was borrowing more than $2 million each week just to stay afloat.
“This was not sustainable,” Weinsten said.


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Those key holiday sales it’s also been a pretty interesting season for the GPU market as well with the new RTX series from Nvidia, but it didn’t go as planned as it should have been in the first place.
We are months into the launch and there still isn’t a game that supports any of the features at the RTX series GPUs we’re supposed to offer so that sort of sets the stage for this video, because as it stood, AMD didn’t really have anything new from their Radeon graphics division and that causes an issue, especially at this time of the year so they had to dig deep into their past and to come up with this the Rx 590.
The RX 590 isn’t really new, it uses the same four generation GCN Polaris architecture found in the RX 480 and RX 580.
AMD is once again using a design that was first launched about two and a half years ago, this thing has more lives than a cat, the only difference is that they’re using a 12-nanometer manufacturing process instead of the 14 nanometers used on the RX 580.
It really is too bad that Vega isn’t being addressed with this new process and supposedly AMD has no plans to change that right now, so as we can see in the specs the updated manufacturing process has allowed AMD to take the RX 580, increase its core frequency, and simply create the RX 590 as a pre-overclocked version.
The claim is that we should see a 10 to 15% framerate boost so, not all that much more than what a user overclocked RX 580 can achieve, so while the RX 580 is meant to compete against NVidia 1060 6GB, this new card is supposed to perform a bit above.
[amazon_link asins=’B07K12KNHG,B07K9MVJ35,B06XZQMMHJ’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’lmtorres-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’3ae2c3db-eab5-11e8-a162-731690da0705′]
But that won’t amount to any additional performance even with a twelve-nanometer core, there’s a huge jump in power consumption since the Polaris architecture wasn’t designed to operate at such high clock speeds.
Just to give you an idea that 225 watts are 10 watts more than what Nvidia rates their RTX 2080, and that’s pretty crazy, of course, pricing had to factor into this – and that’s where I think AMD may have a winner.
We really didn’t need a pre-overclocked Rx 580 but at its price of $280 it should be pretty competitive against Nvidia the GTX 1060 6gb, which goes for around $250 to $290 on Amazon right now so, that’s right in line with the RX 590.
Honestly, this might cause the RX 590 to look like a pretty poor value even before it launches, but there’s one more perk I wanted to talk about: when you purchase an RX 590 or a PC equipped with one you’ll also get three free upcoming games.
There’s Devil May Cry 5 and The Division 2 that is due to launch in March of 2019, while Resident Evil 2 remake should be out in January. All things considered, that’s well over a hundred fifty dollars of free games, but they’re only valuable to someone who actually wants them plus, the offer is only good for a limited time so we can’t really take them into consideration for the RX 590’S long-term value.
I really like the RX 580 but AMD’s obviously trying to push their architecture a little bit further than it was originally designed to and that means the power consumption numbers are huge in comparison to frame rates.
Now if your system can handle it this might be an awesome upgrade, but I would also make sure to check the RX 580 prices before taking the plunge!


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ISBA Conference: Advertisers must prove their economic worth
Advertisers must get better at demonstrating their importance to the economy to ward off the threat of tougher regulation, according to John Whittingdale, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee chair.
In a wide-ranging address to the ISBA Conference this morning, Whittingdale said advertising was of "central importance" to the economy because of its role in helping consumers to make informed spending choices.
''You are the oil in the capitalist machine," he said. ''The challenge for industry is to get across why advertising is important."
However, he warned that five years on since his last speech at the conference, there were still those who are "innately hostile" to marketing.
By way of example, he cited the push to implement plain packaging on tobacco products and the display ban.
He also said that the "pressure has not diminished" to go further on restrictions on advertising food that is high in fat, salt or sugar, following the calls last week by Scottish public health minister Michael Matheson for a UK-wide pre-watershed ban.
Despite advertising's contribution to sectors such as broadcasting and to the wider economy, Whittingdale said the difficulty lay in the fact that a ban was seen not to "cost anyone anything".
This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk
- Account Director - Leading Retail Fashion Brand!! Ultimate Asset £35000 - £38000 per annum + Benefits, London
- ACCOUNT DIRECTOR - CHARITY CLIENT - INDEPENDENT MEDIA AGENCY! Ultimate Asset £45000 - £55000 per annum, London
- Senior Category Manager Ball & Hoolahan £50,000 + car or c/a, West Midlands
- Marketing Controller Ball & Hoolahan £85,000 + Car/Car Allowance, South East England
- Recruitment Consultant Blue Skies Marketing Recruitment £25000 - £35000 per annum, Stratfordupon Avon
- Adam & Eve/DDB wins 2014 IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix
- Enjoyed getting an hour back on Sunday? You'll get years back if you stop smoking, says charity
- Tiffany & Co hires MEC for $100m global media
- Mattessons Fridge Raiders campaign delivers AI robot to YouTube gamer
- HSBC launches Anyone's Game golf campaign
- Pepsi Max pranks cinemagoers for Halloween


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Apple Inc. continues to perform at a high level in both the tablet and smartphone markets. While there is plenty of competition for the top spot, Cupertino continues to strengthen its brand through the production of tope of the line devices.
Apple could “crush it” in wearable device space
Wearable devices are all the rage. If you thought 2015 was exciting, wait until you see what happens over the next 11 months.
According to Gartner, worldwide wearable device sales are set to grow by more than 18 percent this year. If this holds true, Apple, among various other companies, will find itself in position to take advantage.
Gartner believes that 274.6 million wearable electronic devices will be sold worldwide in 2016, which is far greater than the 232 million units sold last year.
While these sales numbers are exciting, it is the revenue generated by such sales that get manufacturers excited. Sales of these devices should generate revenue of $28.7 billion.
Apple Watch is Taking Off
Of the revenue generated by wearable electronic devices this year, $11.5 billion is expected to be from smartwatch sales.
There are many companies hoping to get in on the smartwatch game, but Apple has a tight grip on the market at this time. Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner, said the following:
“From 2015 through 2017, smartwatch adoption will have 48 percent growth largely due to Apple popularizing wearables as a lifestyle trend. Smartwatches have the greatest revenue potential among all wearables through 2019, reaching $17.5 billion.”
Despite the fact that smartwatches are taking off, it’s important to note that this market is nowhere near as big as smartphones. Get this: approximately 374 million smartphones are expected to sell in mature markets this year. As you can see, smartwatches have some catching up to do.
Other Wearable Devices
Even though smartwatches are at the front and center of the wearable device market, there are other types that will gain more attention in the months to come. These devices include: head mounted displays, wristbands, body worn cameras, chest straps, and smart garments.
Apple in Position to Succeed
Apple took its good old time getting involved in the smartwatch industry, however, it leaped into action at just the right time. While other companies struggled in the early days to gain traction, Apple sat back and waited for the perfect opportunity. Then it pounced.
As 2016 wears on and the calendar turns, expect Apple Inc. to remain the leader in the smartwatch space. Along with this, many consumers are wondering if the company has any other tricks up it sleeve. Could Apple release more wearable devices this year? This may be up for debate, but what is clear at this point is Apple’s secure position in the growing smartwatch market.


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Benzinga's Top #PreMarket Losers
Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM) dropped 16.68% to $39.95 in pre-market trading after the company reported weaker-than-expected fiscal second-quarter results and cut its guidance for 2014.
Trimble Navigation (NASDAQ: TRMB) dipped 12.23% to $33.50 in pre-market trading after the company reported downbeat Q1 results and issued a weak Q2 outlook.
FireEye (NASDAQ: FEYE) shares fell 12.07% to $32.65 in pre-market trading after the company reported a Q1 loss of $0.53 per share on revenue of $74.0 million and announced its plans to buy Npulse Technologies.
Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) shares dropped 7.74% to $6.20 in pre-market trading after the company issued a weak forecast. However, the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results.
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.


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Founding entrepreneur Leah Hutcheon has built on her appearance on BBC 2 by closing a fundraising deal for her technology business.
Having featured on The Entrepreneurs where she and a number of other Scots explained the ‘joys and pains’ of starting a business, Hutcheon now plans to double the size of her team at Appointedd and move into new markets and territories.
Appointedd provides a range of tools allowing small company owners to manage business activities online through services such as online booking, customer relationship management and marketing.
The business was initially aimed at the health and beauty industry, but has now expanded to service the likes of PR consultants and dog walkers.
Hutcheon comments, ‘Most small businesses still use pen and paper to record appointments and staff rotas. By taking this process online we boost efficiencies and deliver savings.
‘There are lots of separate tools that help small businesses succeed, but until now there was no one package that could give a small service business all the functionality they need to run their business, all in one place.’
More on Scottish investment deals:
- IKEA’s venture arm backs Scottish LED business
- Business Growth Fund backs 50th company
- Pyreos goes back to investor pool to raise new funds
The idea for Appointedd came from noticing that, while she was able to manage a lot of her life online, Hutcheon could not do so when it came to engaging with smaller businesses.
Fraser Lusty, director at Equity Gap, says that the investment into Appointedd is an example of how Scottish start-ups are benefiting from the country’s ‘vibrant angel community’.
‘Leah [Hutcheon] really understands her market and has a clear vision of where she wants to take her business.
‘The software is easy to use and provides a service users want. We have been extremely impressed with Leah and believe that we can bring commercial perspective that will help her take here business forward to the next level.’


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The eco-concious consumer knows a thousand ways to be green: take the bus to work, turn lights off when you leave the house, and of course, compost and recycle. Recycling initiatives are on the rise in communities around the world, but individual programs are only part of the solution. Waste, and the potential gains from recycling, are far higher in the commercial and industrial sectors than in the residential one. For example, the production of one car creates 8000kg of raw material residue, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.
Consumer companies differ in how well they’ve embraced sustainability initiatives. A new website, GoodGuide.com, rates products and companies on environmental, health, and social criteria. Using over 200 data points, they produce a 0-10 rating on the sustainability of over 62,000 products. Focusing on just a few of those data points gives a view into the most proactive companies:
Best Companies on Recycled Materials – This list orders companies based on their commitment to use or manufacture recycled materials. Many of the companies on this list are food companies: Chiquita Brands, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and the Heinz Frozen Food Company.
Best Companies for Carbon Footprint – Food companies also top this list of companies with the lowest contribution to global warming. Bob Evans Food, Nestle, and Dreyer’s Ice Cream are all in the best list.
In addition to environmental responsibility, companies are also accountable to their customers and employees. GoodGuide provides ratings on these qualities as well:
Best Family Friendly Companies – Companies are rated on whether it provides day care services or extra maternity leave beyond the legal minimum, and whether the company has won a family-friendly prize like a Working Mother Award. Perhaps surprisingly, big drug companies top this list: Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline score very well.
Best Companies for Retirement Benefits – When companies are rated according to their retirement benefits programs, there are some well-known standouts: the 3M company, makers of Scotch Tape, and California Pizza Kitchen.
Consumers are often looking for the best way to make a positive impact on the environment. Starting recycling programs in homes and communities is a great start. Another good step: Buying from companies who have programs that you believe in.
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Definition: This entry provides the total US dollar amount of merchandise exports on an f.o.b. (free on board) basis. These figures are calculated on an exchange rate basis, i.e., not in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.
Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of January 1, 2014See also: Exports map
World ripe for cherries with strong export figures
Weekly Times Now - 6/29/2016 11:54:32 AM
Small volumes to the US and Canada also put these countries back on the export list. Cherry Growers Australia chief executive Simon Boughey said the 2015-16 year had come and gone with excellent results across the country. “This was mainly due to ...
10 Countries that Export the Most Fish in the World
INSIDER MONKEY - 6/20/2016 3:01:11 AM
If ever you’re wondering where fish on your sushi comes from, join us in discovering the 10 countries that export the most fish in the world! Chances are that salmon you are eating may have come from the Northern Atlantic! “Give a man a fish, and you ...
Ireland among countries most vulnerable to EU referendum shock
The Guardian - 6/28/2016 5:25:00 PM
Fitch warned the result of the referendum would weigh on the economies of other EU countries, mainly because of lower exports to the UK, and increase political risk in Europe. It said that Malta, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Luxembourg, as well as ...
How Brexit could turn every country into a loser
Washington Post - 6/28/2016 9:03:55 AM
Developing nations took advantage of their currency’s weaker status to export their way to ... to leave a wide part of the country uninhabitable. The yen tends to strengthen any time investors worry about the world’s path. And Japan, to put it bluntly ...
Our fragmenting world
Inquirer Opinion - 6/28/2016 4:13:25 PM
“Brexit” has stunned the world, but as early as the late 1980s the mighty ... Germany, Japan and South Korea are also export-oriented countries, but they have the domestic consumer base to soften (at least temporarily) the impact of falling exports.
Stiff U.S. corn export competition redrawing global grain flows
Reuters - 6/28/2016 9:03:55 AM
The shift illustrates how the United States, once the world's lone grain trading superpower ... Corn plantings in Argentina could jump 20 percent after changes to the country's export policies.
Halfway Around The World, Brexit Hits Japan's Already Soft Economy
North Country Public Radio - 6/28/2016 8:35:17 AM
In Japan, the world's third largest economy, the Brexit means more bad news for a country already struggling with its finances ... year 2000 (though it did rebound a bit on Monday). Japan's exports instantly became pricier — and less competitive ...
Robert J. Samuelson: World braces for Brexit consequences
The Spokesman-Review - 6/28/2016 7:02:14 AM
The most likely channel, they say, is through weaker exports. There would be a double whammy ... “There is a real risk of ‘populist exit contagion’ in a number of countries,” he says. “The world economy is far more brittle than usual because ...
Why Does a Weak Pound Matter to the World?
The Wall Street Journal Blogs - 6/28/2016 7:33:51 PM
When investment by businesses and spending by households is weak but governments are unwilling to spend more, exports become a main source of growth for the economy. In the current world of subdued ... which compares the country’s currency with a basket ...
This country's not even in Europe, but may get walloped by Brexit anyhow
Yahoo Finance - 6/26/2016 11:18:08 PM
In April, the country posted a deficit, but exports grew 8 percent year on year. A strengthening currency imperils that export growth, and heightens the risk that the BoJ—one of the most assertive central banks in the world in terms of managing currency ...
Mango export may be doubled by adopting int'l standards: MCCI
Business Recorder - 6/26/2016 11:39:36 PM
Pakistan can double its mango export to more than 40 countries of the world by adopting the international standards of processing, packaging and hot water treatment and can earn about one billion dollars per season and it can be increased further by paying ...
Increasing Opportunities for American Business by Opening Global Markets
The Huffington Post - 6/28/2016 1:47:16 AM
But many of us are already aware that our ability to compete and export is impeded by market access restrictions ... These barriers number in the thousands, and exist in economies throughout the world. Our country and regional experts also work with ...
A Single Senator Stymies the Export-Import Bank
New York Times - 6/27/2016 11:24:06 PM
Boone, a Westinghouse spokeswoman. Especially in the developing world, some countries require that exporters bidding for sales have backing from an export credit agency. So some American companies are seeking or accepting support from foreign agencies ...
India’s military chiefs to visit Asean countries
Financial Express - 6/28/2016 12:50:00 AM
As reported by FE in May, both India and Russia have agreed `in principle’ to export the world’s fastest anti-ship cruise missile, BrahMos, to countries including the UAE, Vietnam, South Africa and the south American country Chile. “Since Russia is ...
5th exports new musicals around the country
Examiner - 6/25/2016 11:52:07 AM
It also become one more musical export for the 5th. With a script nicely tailored for ... in addition to several Northwest premieres and remounting some classics, the 5th will launch the world premiere of “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion ...


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USA / Global
Filter News by:
McLaren Teases New Hybrid Supercar For 2021 Release
It'll feature a carbon fiber chassis.
Oct 06 2020
McLaren Says Synthetic Fuels Could Be An EV Alternative
They'd never replace batteries, though.
Apr 09 2020
McLaren 720S Hybrid Mule Spied For The First Time [UPDATE]
The electrified prototype carries the 'MVY04-BP23' codename.
May 17 2019
McLaren Says Yes To Electric Cars In 2025, But No To SUVs
Company boss tells Automotive News an SUV is "not what McLaren does."
Aug 29 2018
McLaren Is Testing An EV – But It Doesn’t Think It's Good Enough
Engineers say the numbers don't stack up for an electric McLaren just yet.
May 06 2018
McLaren Announces It’s Testing A Fully Electric Vehicle
But a production EV from the company is still a way off.
Dec 21 2017
2020 NY Auto Show
VW Group dominates finalist list for 2017 World Car of the Year
The World Car Awards also announced the finalists for its other categories, including luxury, performance, green, urban, and design.
Feb 03 2017
McLaren unveils all-electric P1... for six year olds
McLaren's P1 ride on is the perfect way to introduce kids to the sports car brand. At $486, it's a lot less expensive than the real thing, too.
Sep 26 2016
Car Buying Service
Get upfront price offers on local inventory.
McLaren developing all-electric hypercar to fit below P1
Track-focused addition to Ultimate Series range.
Jun 02 2016
Mclaren to use P1's hybrid tech on lesser models soon; P1 successor due in 10 years
McLaren Automotive CEO Mike Flewitt has disclosed some juicy details about the company’s future plans.
Mar 10 2015
Vehicle Imagery licensed from EVOX Images
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“Given the recent history of protests and civil war in several holiday hotspots in North Africa and the Middle East, it is understandable that UK travellers to Turkey may feel a little unsettled by TV and media reports of demonstrations in the country.
“As a result, and unsurprisingly, we’ve seen a slight dip in enquiries to the area but UK holidaymakers appear resilient and continue to enthuse about the country’s attractions and hospitality. Some new enquiries are looking for alternative resorts which represent similar value, proximity to UK and culture and as a result we’ve been touting Cape Verde and Egypt as popular alternatives.
“At the moment the disruptions mainly focus around urban areas and cities so those travelling to holiday resorts are mainly unaffected. Of course, we recommend all travellers follow the advice given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, available on their website, and we’re monitoring Turkey closely so if the situation changes we can contact our booked customers.
“There aren’t any refunds available on trips already booked to Turkey while the situation remains safe.” says Maria Whiteman, CEO of Directline Holidays.


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SEGA have confirmed that they won’t have their own booth at E3 2015 in Los Angeles next month.
They have instead chosen to collaborate with “various business partners” this year, reasoning that SEGA of America are currently concentrating on their “restructure and relocation to Southern California.”
That suggests that while they won’t have their own booth, SEGA may make an appearance in any of Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony’s presentations – presumably seeing Sonic return after a rather catastrophic effort last year.
“Over the next months, SEGA of America will be focusing on the restructure and relocation to Southern California, and we have decided to not attend E3 with our own booth this year,” a company representative shared with Game Informer.
“With the majority of our bigger titles launching later in 2015/2016, particularly those from our AAA studios Relic Entertainment, Sports Interactive and Creative Assembly, we are concentrating our efforts for some of these major announcements after our relocation. Instead, we will be collaborating with our various business partners for this year’s E3 show.”


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Investor interest in the airline space has been flying high since the pandemic. The crippling effects on the travel industry have led to depressed valuations and tempted bargain hunters to buy airline stocks.
Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) has been among the companies that have been most actively traded. Yet despite the buzz, the stock price has remained mostly grounded in recent months.
With the Trump administration pledging monetary relief for the ailing airline industry, can Delta finally begin its ascent?
It's anyone's guess if relief will soon come Delta's way. What's more certain is that the stock will continue to be volatile for the foreseeable future. Muted demand for leisure and business travel and higher expenses related to COVID-19 will make it very difficult for Delta and its peers to lift off anytime soon.
What are the Headwinds for Delta?
Simply put, lower demand is the big problem for Delta and the nation's other major air carriers. State travel restrictions and a general sense of unease about getting on board a giant metal petri dish has made Delta scrambling for ways to lure back travelers.
Instead of the usual hectic holiday travel season, Delta's terminals will be virtual ghost towns as people stay home or hop in their cars to spend time with family this winter.
Corporate travel has also ground to a halt. Businesses have shifted to remote work arrangements and are conducting business through technology rather than travel. Corporate travel demand has also not shown signs of a turnaround.
Delta's dependence on passenger revenue makes it especially susceptible to the current travel market conditions. Approximately 90% of revenues were generated from passenger travel last year while less than 2% came from cargo transportation.
These challenges have forced Delta to make liquidity preservation a priority. The company's main financial goal is to reduce average daily cash burn to zero and secure $10 billion in liquidity by the end of this year. With or without government aid, Delta will likely meet these targets as the capital markets have been supportive.
In addition to pausing new aircraft deliveries, Delta is idling and retiring a significant portion of its fleet. Non-essential maintenance has been reduced. These measures should go a long way in paring down labor and other expenses. And of course, lower fuel expenses help, although at this point Delta would gladly trade higher fuel prices for increased booking trends.
What Can Propel Delta's Stock Higher?
The road to recovery will likely be a long and choppy one for Delta. The company has estimated that revenue recovery to pre-COVID levels could take as much as two to three years. Until then Delta must be resigned to becoming a leaner carrier with limited flight options and a slimmed-down employee count.
And while the passage of the proposed $25 billion aid package for airliners would help boost investor sentiment towards Delta's stock, it will be a band-aid to keep the company solvent. Ultimately for Delta's share price to go on a sustainable rally, people will have to want to return to the friendly skies.
This means corporate travel policies will have to loosen. With many companies investing heavily in remote workforce technology, some businesses may never return to Delta and others will do so only in urgent cases.
Leisure travelers will also need to become more comfortable with air travel. Although Delta has noted modestly improved travel demand in recent months, people remain cautious.
Air travel and public transportation just aren't desirable ways to get around these days. Its no wonder that used car and truck prices increased more than they have in 51 years in August.
Even as pandemic conditions improve, air travel as we know it will probably never be the same. People who previously didn't think twice about booking a flight, will be more likely to consider alternative transportation modes due to the perceived relative safety.
Efforts by air carriers to disinfect and clean their aircraft and waiting areas haven't been enough to win back fliers. Nor has removing the already undesirable middle seat as passengers have decided the battle against the virus is more important than the battle for elbow room.
To help people feel safe, some airports and airlines taken steps to ease travelers' minds once they reach the airport. They are offering COVID-19 testing as a way for travelers to avoid the 14-day quarantine restrictions imposed by some states—and more importantly to help people feel better about hopping on board.
These efforts all come with good intentions, but the airline industry has many miles to go before consumer comfort catches up with travel demand.
Is Delta Air Lines Stock a Buy?
In terms of valuation, Delta's share price looks cheap at 0.4x sales—but with good reason. Plenty of hurdles stand in the way for the company to return to growth.
We'll learn more about the Delta's latest financial performance (and efforts to survive) when the company reports third quarter earnings pre-market on October 13th. Analysts are expecting a narrower net loss compared to last quarter of $3.10 per share.
In the meantime, investors should expect the bumpy ride to continue well into 2021. If we start to see signs of smoother air ahead in the form of healthy, sustainable travel demand then the stock could be a buy. Until then, it's merely a speculative play on the day-to-day pandemic and stimulus headlines.
So, while the misfortunes of the airline industry have attracted many traders, long-term investors should remain on standby until industry fundamentals improve before boarding Delta.
Featured Article: Why Invest in High-Yield Dividend Stocks?7 Hotel Stocks Just Waiting For the Vaccine
Like any group of stocks related to travel and tourism, hotel stocks saw a steep drop in share prices in 2020. The leisure and hospitality sector that once had 15 million employees has lost 4 million jobs since February.
Many major cities will be feeling the ripple effects of the Covid-19 pandemic for years. However, there is ample evidence that shows the pandemic may be coming to an end. The number of new cases is dropping. The number of those getting vaccinated is rising. And even in the cities with the most restrictive mitigation measures, the slow process of reopening is beginning.
All of this can’t come fast enough for individuals who rely on the travel and tourism industry for their livelihood. Hotel chains had at least some revenue coming in the door. And when earnings season concludes, the more budget-friendly hotel chains may realize revenue that is 75% of its 2019 numbers. But that is not enough to bring the hotels to anywhere near full employment. Particularly with hotels that have bars and restaurants that have remained closed or open at limited capacity.
Many economists are optimistic that travel may begin to look more normal by the summer of this year. And the global economy may deliver 6.4% GDP growth this year. With that in mind, the hotel chains with the best fundamentals and the broadest footprint will be in the best position as the economy reopens.
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HomeVideosBinkabi CEO Quan Le on trading commodities on Blockchain
Binkabi CEO Quan Le on trading commodities on Blockchain
Blockchain is revolutionising financial markets around the world. Binkabi, a blockchain based commodity trading platform, has launched a pilot program for agriculture commodity traders in emerging markets. Quan Le, CEO of Binkabi joins CNBC Africa to shed some light on how block chain can be applied to commodity trading.


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Fall market set this weekend
The Hunt & Gather Fall Market will be Friday and Saturday at the former Wool and Mohair Warehouse, 608 Railroad Ave.
Early shopping from 10 a.m. to noon Friday will be available for a $20 entry fee. Regular hours are noon to 6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday for $6.
Vendors will display vintage and repurposed items for home and garden, antiques, clothing, jewelry, Christmas gifts, home décor and more.
For more information, call 325-365-3640.
With the market, a Fall Frenzy Shopping Extravaganza will be downtown with vendors on the sidewalk and local businesses keeping extended hours.
For more information, call the Chamber of Commerce at 325-365-2333.
City ranked among 50 safest in Texas
The home security system company SafeWise has ranked Del Rio as the 33rd safest city in Texas out of 50 cities across the state with a population of 20,000 or more, as of 2011.
SafeWise paired data from the most recent FBI Crime in the U.S. report with its in-house research to create a list of the 50 safest cities in Texas.
According to the crime report for Del Rio, no rapes, 12 robberies and less than 20 vehicle thefts were reported to law enforcement in 2011. Del Rio has close to 40,000 residents.
The five safest cities were Colleyville, Little Elm, Friendswood, Flower Mound and Sachse.
For the complete list, visit www.safewise.com/blog/safewise-50-safest-cities-texas.
Dinner for hunters planned Nov. 23
The Eden Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual Camouflage Cotillion Hunters Appreciation dinner from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Nov. 23 at the Burnes Civic Center in Lee Pfluger Park.
Admission is $15.
A raffle of 18 guns and various hunting equipment will be held. Tickets are $1 each.
Door prizes will be given throughout the event and a local DJ will provide music.
For more information, call 325-340-2246.
Museum to focus on Golden Books
The Museum of the Southwest will host a gallery talk on “Golden Legacy: Original Art from 65 Years of Golden Books” at 10 a.m. Nov. 21.
Guest speaker Debbie Lillick, executive director of the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature, will talk about the significance of the publications and their relevance to adults today.
The program is free with paid admission to the museum.
For more information, call 432-683-2882.
Toy Run welcomes motorcylists
The second annual Nolan County Goodfellows Toy Run will be at 11 a.m. Nov. 30 at the Nolan County Coliseum.
Entry fee is a new, unwrapped toy and a canned good.
All motorcycle riders are welcome.
For more information, call 325-338-6446.


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With 15 Years Experience Leading Engineering Teams at PayPal, Zong, & SendMe, Armandpour Will Drive YapStone’s Online and Mobile Product Development.
YapStone, a leading web-based and mobile payments platform, has appointed Tim Armandpour as Senior Vice President of Engineering and Technology. Armandpour brings extensive engineering and executive management experience within the payments industry to YapStone, having formerly led engineering teams at PayPal, Zong, SendMe and Yodlee. Armandpour will be responsible for overseeing the development and deployment of YapStone’s payments platform and API, as well as bringing new mobile products to market to further drive YapStone’s rapid growth in the payments space.
“We’re thrilled to have someone with Tim’s track record and expertise join the YapStone team to lead our engineering and technology efforts,” said Tom Villante, Chairman and Co-Founder of YapStone. “Tim is a proven technology leader in the payments space. He was instrumental in growing Zong into a mobile payments leader that was acquired by PayPal, and then went on to become a key member of the PayPal engineering team, leading the development of significant consumer products such as PayPal Wallet.”
“There aren’t many industries where you can be a touch point for millions of people everyday. For the past 15 years, I’ve worked for companies who are building innovative products that help businesses accept and process payments, as well as make it easier for consumers to pay for goods and manage their money,” said Armandpour. “YapStone’s growth rate in terms of reach, profit and scale is impressive, and they offer a unique opportunity to develop and bring products to market that have a real impact on people’s day-to-day lives.”
Most recently, Armandpour led the global engineering team at PayPal that developed the new consumer-focused PayPal mobile applications, pushed for the adoption of technologies that would modernize the web experience for PayPal’s customers, and developed the company’s digital goods and digital wallet products across desktop, tablet, web and mobile experiences. Tim joined PayPal with the acquisition of Zong where he served as VP Engineering and was instrumental in growing the company into a leading mobile payments provider.
Prior to PayPal and Zong, Tim was VP of Engineering at SendMe, a recognized leader in mobile entertainment content in the U.S., and helped SendMe achieve annual revenues of more than $120 million. Tim also served as Senior Director of Engineering at Yodlee, a leading personal finance and payments management solutions provider and an early pioneer of data aggregation in the financial space. As one of the earliest employees at Yodlee, Armandpour was in charge of the company’s Bill Pay and Funds Transfer solutions. Armandpour holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from UC San Diego and has been awarded multiple U.S. patents.
Armandpour’s appointment follows two key operations additions to the YapStone senior management team, including Colleen Lindow as Vice President of Payment Operations and Christopher McLaughlin-Brooks as Vice President of Technical Operations. Lindow and McLaughlin-Brooks also bring extensive payments industry expertise to YapStone, having held leadership roles at companies like eBay, PayPal, Square, Visa, Yahoo, SAP and Bill.com.


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These shows just in from the folks at Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y.
Pop-rock singer Michael McDonald will visit the 800-seat Showroom at 8 p.m. July 23. Tickets, priced at $65, $70 and $80, go on sale at 10 a.m. May 22.
The combo of pop singer Cyndi Lauper and comic/TV talker Rosie O'Donnell visit the Showroom at 8 p.m. Aug. 1. Tickets, priced at $56, $61 and $71, go on sale at 10 a.m. May 29. A dollar from each ticket sold will go to their True Colors charity.
Van Halen fans will be able to catch the near-VH work of tribute band Atomic Punks at 8 p.m. Sept. 26 in the showroom. Tickets, priced at $15, $20 and $25, go on sale at 10 a.m. May 22.


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Russian Grand Prix Formula One preview
Tag Archive: Sauber F1 Team
The Sauber F1 Team is pleased to announce the extension of its partnership with Thomann Nutzfahrzeuge AG.
Since 2010 the Swiss family-owned company has provided the Sauber F1 Team with semi-trailer tractors, trucks and transporters as Official Partner. After five years of a successful collaboration, the partnership will continue for another three years.


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Amazon turns 20, bookseller became a global e-commerce powerhouse
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon has come a long way from selling books out of a Seattle garage.
The company had an inauspicious start in July 1995 at the dawn of the Web as an online bookseller. It narrowly escaped the dot-com bust of 2000 to reinvent online retailing. And eventually, it morphed into the global e-commerce powerhouse it is today with $89 billion in annual revenue.
Greek banks to reopen after cash pledge from lenders
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece on Thursday won vital pledges of support from bailout lenders needed to keep its economy from collapsing, but officials in Athens said the painful austerity measures demanded in return were likely to force an election within months.
Hours after parliament approved the tough new cuts, the government promised to reopen banks on Monday and gradually restore services — helped by higher cash support from the European Central Bank.
EBay, PayPal outline plans for after split
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When eBay and PayPal split up on Friday, they’ll face different challenges than they did as a combined company.
E-commerce company eBay first said in September 2014 it would split off its payments unit PayPal, in order to focus the two companies on growing profits individually. Investors, including activist Carl Icahn, had lobbied for the movie.
Though the split happens Friday, PayPal starts trading on the Nasdaq under the “PYPL” ticker on Monday, while San Jose, California-based eBay will keep trading under the “EBAY” symbol.
Airbus CEO talks about emissions, innovation and more
DALLAS (AP) — These are heady times for the commercial-aircraft business at Airbus and Boeing, as airlines place huge orders for new planes.
Each is working on more fuel-efficient aircraft to satisfy airlines that want lower fuel bills and regulators who want lower emissions from aircraft.
Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders spoke last month to an aviation conference in Dallas and urged the industry to put more emphasis into breakthrough technologies that could be “disruptive” or revolutionary — more like tech companies. He touted the cockpit automation of the giant A380, assembled at the Airbus plant in Toulouse, France, and talked about building electric-powered or hybrid planes.
Taking stock of China’s crash: How US investors are affected
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s tempting to think of China’s stock market crash this summer as just a faraway problem. It’s not.
If you have a 401(k) or IRA, odds are good that you have at least a sliver of your savings in Chinese companies. The lure of China’s potential is so strong that more than half of all stock mutual funds have at least one Chinese company in their portfolio, and that includes hundreds categorized as U.S. stock funds.
Review: Apple Music has everything, perhaps too much
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Apple’s new music service is a valiant effort to catch up in the emerging business of offering unlimited music on demand for a monthly price. It does so while acknowledging the legacy of iTunes, the world’s most popular store for buying individual songs to own.
But Apple Music feels like an attempt to take on every competitive app from Pandora to Spotify to YouTube and advance the idea of online radio at the same time.
Yellen: Higher rates won’t derail recovery
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen sought to reassure worried lawmakers on Thursday that when the Fed begins to raise interest rates, it will be careful not to derail the economy.
Delivering her second day of congressional testimony, Yellen responded to concerns from some Democratic senators that once the Fed does start raising rates, it could set back job market and income gains.
Applications for US jobless aid fall to low level of 281,000
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer people sought U.S. unemployment benefits last week as employers remain confident enough in the economy to hold onto their staffs.
The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of applications for weekly unemployment aid fell 15,000 to 281,000. The four-week average, a less volatile figure, rose 3,250 to 282,500. Both figures remain below 300,000, a very low level historically that points to a solid job market.
US homebuilder sentiment hits highest level since 2005
U.S. homebuilders’ confidence in the market for new homes is back up to levels not seen since the height of the housing boom a decade ago.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Thursday rose this month to 60, the highest level since November 2005.
The latest reading is unchanged from May, which was revised upward one point from 59. July’s reading is up from 53 a year ago. Readings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as good, rather than poor.
Lawmakers back company responsible for decade-old Gulf leak
WASHINGTON (AP) — Capitol Hill lawmakers from Louisiana have intervened on behalf of a New Orleans company that has failed to stop a decade-old oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico but lobbied for a refund of money reserved for spill containment work, according to letters obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests.
Since December, at least four members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation have urged the Obama administration to take up a settlement proposal by Taylor Energy Company, the letters show. The company is down to one full-time employee and is no longer active in the offshore drilling industry, but its CEO is a prominent philanthropist and generous political donor.
GOP bill would undermine auto, rail safety regulations
WASHINGTON (AP) — At a time of record auto recalls and high-profile train wrecks, Republicans are working on legislation to roll back safety regulation of the auto and railroad industries.
A bill approved this week on a party-line vote by a Senate committee brims with industry-sought provisions that would block, delay or roll back safety rules. The measure is to be part of a must-pass transportation bill that GOP leaders hope to put to a vote in the Senate as early as next week.
United pays miles to hackers who spotted IT-system flaws
Two hackers have scored a million frequent-flier miles each on United Airlines for finding security holes in the airline’s computer systems.
The awards were made under a security program that United started in May. Technology companies have offered so-called bug bounties, but they are unusual in the transportation industry.
United spokesman Luke Punzenberger said Thursday that two people have received the maximum award of 1 million miles each and others got smaller awards. A million miles is enough for several first-class trips to Asia or up to 20 round-trips in the U.S.
Google’s 2Q signals new era of austerity with new CFO
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After years of big spending on risky projects that CEO Larry Page proudly hails as “moonshots,” Google may be launching into a new orbit of financial discipline.
Investor hopes for a more austere Google are largely tied to the arrival of a new chief financial officer, Ruth Porat. She joined Google in late May, about two-thirds of the way through the Internet company’s second quarter. Thursday’s release of Google’s report covering that period indicates that Porat already may be shaking things up.
Spies in the hot seat after Italian surveillance firm breach
LONDON (AP) — A dramatic breach at an Italian surveillance company has laid bare the details of government cyberattacks worldwide, putting intelligence chiefs in the hot seat from Cyprus to South Korea. The massive leak has already led to one spymaster’s resignation and pulled back the curtain on espionage in the iPhone age.
Amazon says ‘Prime Day’ will be annual event
Amazon says its “Prime Day” sale led to a sales surge and “hundreds of thousands” of new signups for its $99 annual Prime loyalty program. The company said it plans to make the sale an annual event.
Tied to its 20th anniversary, Amazon promoted Wednesday’s sale for weeks by saying there would be more deals than during the busy winter holiday shopping season. Some shoppers took to social media and elsewhere to complain about the types of sales they were seeing and their limited nature.
By The Associated Press=
The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 70.08 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 18,120.25. The S&P 500 gained 16.89 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 2,124.29. The Nasdaq composite climbed 64.24 points, or 1.3 per cent, to 5,163.18.
Benchmark U.S. crude lost 50 cents to close at $50.91 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils used by many U.S. refineries, rose 46 cents to close at $57.51 a barrel in London. Wholesale gasoline rose 3.8 cents to close at $1.897 a gallon. Heating oil fell 0.3 cent to close at $1.666 a gallon. Natural gas declined 6.4 cents to close at $2.854 per 1,000 cubic feet.


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"Free" web and app-based games for children are under investigation following concerns that users can run up substantial costs.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) are investigating whether children are being pressured to pay for content within the games such as upgraded membership and virtual currency.
The OFT has contacted companies who run the games asking for information on how they market to children.
It is also speaking to parents and consumer groups calling for information about potentially misleading or commercially aggressive practices.
More top news
A van bearing the faces of some of Britain's most wanted fugitives will be driven around parts of Spain popular with expats in a new push.
A list of commemorative events as the UK marks a decade to the day 52 were killed and hundreds injured in London terror attacks.
The veteran US comedian made the admission in a 2005 civil case, newly-unsealed court documents show.


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Reelcraft recently announced a new heavy duty sprint retractable cord reel. The new series is designed to accommodate up to 100 feet of 12 gauge cord. The newly redesigned latching mechanism helps to lengthen the service life of the latch components. The L 70000 has a new compact design, guide rollers, and can adjust to seven positions.
For more on this product, visit the Reelcraft product sheet.


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In 2010, Apple blindsided Microsoft – and most everyone else – with the phenomenal success of the iPad. That success is now eating away at Windows PC sales. While Apple’s innovation took Microsoft down for the count, the software giant has regrouped and is trying to come back by shifting the battlefield from consumers to businesses.
To turn the tide, Microsoft is counting on business users, a market where Apple remains relatively weak and CEO Steve Ballmer’s crew retains several critical advantages. Microsoft’s counterpunches will include Windows 8 and Office 13, a combination Apple can’t match in the business world.
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Do you instinctively hop into the backseat when your Uber or Lyft pulls up? Well, new research may have you rethinking that decision.
According to a study conducted by insurance company Netquote, new research shows that the average rideshare vehicle has about 219 times as many germs as the average taxi.
Analysts also say these backseats are nearly three times dirtier than the average toothbrush holder and contain more than 35,000 times more germs than the average toilet seat.
Most of the germs were reportedly found on the window buttons and seat belts.
On average, researchers found more than 5 million colony-forming units per square inch on the tiny buttons and more than 1 million colony-forming units per square inch on the seat belts.
The Netquote study examined three rideshare vehicles, three taxis and three rental cars.